One way would be for the first carriage to have power pick-up bogies and for each side to be electrically connected using very fine wires to the power unit...thus doubling the number of bogies picking up power.

This would not only give the now coupled power car and carriage a better chance of running through points, it would also improve the general running....

I think this may have been discussed before.....but I've no idea if anyone actually tried it!

I see someone else reads the N gauge forum then I think in principle it's a good idea, however I think continuous wiring in a multiple unit in T would be easier to accomplish. This, however, wouldn't work for a single loco/DMU but then would there be enough space without using surface mount components?

Alas, we only get decent slow running in T by using PWM. If you add a capacitor to the loco, you smooth this out and raise the voltage and speed to full. Even in larger scales, keep-alive circuits only work with DCC, where the power storage happens before the speed-control part of the decoder.

And Doug - I run my two-loco trains with the power units permanently wired together, and it really does help. Two days of exhibition running with frequent smooth stops and starts with nary a hiccup. Basically performance equivalent to the three separate power cars in the HST set.